


Alas, I Cannot Swim

by Netgirl_y2k



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-05
Updated: 2012-07-05
Packaged: 2017-11-09 05:58:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/452119
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Netgirl_y2k/pseuds/Netgirl_y2k
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Val didn't save Jon Snow - that was his direwolf and the red woman - but she did <i>steal</i> him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Alas, I Cannot Swim

Long ago, Val stole a boy named Jarl, but the ice cracked beneath his hands and the Wall stole him back.  
  
It remains to be seen if the same fate awaits Jon Snow.  
  
Lord Snow has been slipping in and out of consciousness since they fled the Wall, and Val has been forced to tie him to his horse to make sure they keep moving.  
  
When it's this cold you are either moving or you're dying; and the wights come for the dying.  
  
*  
  
Val didn't save Jon Snow - that was his direwolf and the red woman - but she did  _steal_  him.  
  
*  
  
When they stop for the night Val rings them with fire.  
  
She has to hope that together the flames and Ghost - who won't leave the injured crow's side - will keep the cold winds at bay.  
  
She takes the chance to check on Jon Snow's injuries. How he still lives is a mystery. Val has seen men with wounds of this type, has inflicted a few herself, and they are always,  _always_  fatal.  
  
Snow is pale and drawn, delirious in his rare moment of consciousness; and yet he lives.  
  
Val finds herself wondering what sorcery Lady Red worked to save the Lord Crow.  
  
She finds herself thinking of Jon Snow's wildling wife; if Ygritte was kissed by fire and that made her lucky, what does being the daughter of fire make Melisandre?  
  
 _Dangerous,_  Val answers her own question, it makes her dangerous.  
  
Ghost bares his teeth, only slightly, just enough to let Val know that she has been lingering over Jon Snow's body for too long.  
  
Ghost is dangerous too. Right now he keeps the Others at bay and warms Val while she sleeps, but should Jon Snow perish from his wounds, should Val have to burn his body... what then?  
  
*  
  
At first light Snow comes around long enough to drink a little, eat less, and not be a complete deadweight as Val binds him atop his garron.  
  
He grabs her wrist, and the strength in his fingers gives her hope. "Longclaw..."  
  
His sword, Val knows. Only southroners would be so foolish as to name their blades. Val wears the sword across her back, it is too long for her to wear on her hip; it is the same way Jon Snow wears it.  
  
"Dragonsteel..." he says, "the Others... stick 'em with the pointy end, Arya..."  
  
That's all he manages before unconsciousness claims him again.  
  
*  
  
Val carries Snow's sword, her own bone knife, and a dagger of dragonglass.  
  
The dagger had been pressed upon her by Lady Red when Val was being smuggled through the gate with two garrons, some meager supplies, and the barely breathing body of the Lord Crow.  
  
Were it not for the presence of Satin and Tormund, Val would have suspected she was being sent out to die.  
  
"Keep him alive, keep him safe," Melisandre had whispered, her breath warm, scorching, on Val's cheek. "I have seen it in my fires, he is important."  
  
As if Val didn't know that, as if she was blind to that fact that Jon Snow is the last hope of the free folk.  
  
*  
  
Val can feel Snow's eyes on her as she builds their fires.  
  
"Who's Arya?" she asks. "You were speaking of her earlier."  
  
"My little sister," he says, his voice is weak still. "I would have saved her. I would have saved Dalla too, if I could."  
  
"Sleep, Jon Snow," Val instructs him.  
  
*  
  
While he sleeps the Lord Crow looks young, younger.  
  
Val thinks that had he attempted to steal her she would, perhaps, not have gelded him after all.  
  
She would have taken a finger or two, though, just so their relationship got off to the right start.  
  
Jon Snow burrows against her, away from the cold. "Ygritte," he whispers.  
  
*  
  
In the morning he seems better, more lucid. Val still ties him to his horse, but he's aware enough to complain of the indignity of it as she does so.  
  
"We're North of the Wall, is that a good idea?"  
  
"Your crows will send rangers after us. I do not know your southron hills, but no man finds me in the haunted forest unless I want to be found."  
  
No, thinks Val, it's not remotely a good idea.  
  
"Where are we going?"  
  
"I've heard your men call it Whore's Hole."  
  
"Long Barrow," says Snow, sounding weary again. "Iron Emmett... Dolorous Edd... good."  
  
Val had been thinking more of Black Maris and the rest of the spearwives, but if Snow trusts the men there then all the better.  
  
*  
  
As Snow gets stronger he gets gloomier.  
  
"I wonder if I'm the only lord commander nearly assassinated by his own sworn brothers? Sam would know."  
  
"Sam is your friend that you banished to Oldtown?"  
  
"I didn't banish-- What do you mean by that?"  
  
"That if you mean to surround yourself with foes you'd be wise to keep a friend or two by your side."  
  
"I do not wish for wildling enemies!"  
  
"I was not speaking of the free folk, Jon Snow."  
  
*  
  
Val stole Jon Snow not because Melisandre asked her to, but because he is the only hope of the free folk.  
  
Most of the crows-- Well, they have hearts as black as their cloaks, just as Val's mother had told her. They would gladly feed the free folk - old men, mothers, babes in arms and all - to the Others if it meant the Wall stayed free of them for another day.  
  
But Jon Snow, he reminds her of Mance in a way.  
  
When the cold winds rose, bringing the Others, when the dead started walking, the King Beyond the Wall gathered the free folk to him. The Magnar would have saved his Thenns, Tormund his own small band, Val would have saved herself, and Jarl and Dalla if she could. Mance had wanted to save everyone who could be saved.  
  
Jon Snow is much the same.  
  
Which is why Val is north of the Wall at a time when anyone with sense is fleeing as far south as south goes.  
  
Because Jon Snow must be saved, if only so he can save the rest of them.  
  
*  
  
They ride out of the mists one morning, three rangers all in black. Val has half drawn Longclaw - she does not relish the chance to die in defence of the Lord Crow, but she has begun to accept that she will if she must - when she realises that two of them are women.  
  
Black Maris, a spearwife called Mare, and another figure who throws back his hood to reveal a long, miserable face - which takes in Jon Snow attempting to fumble the bone knife Val had given him when he'd insisted he was strong enough to bear arms, even though he was barely strong enough to hold the water skin to his mouth, from its sheath.  
  
"Just when I thought things couldn't get any worse," says Dolorous Edd.  
  
"You took the words right out of my mouth, Edd," says Jon Snow.  
  
Val grins behind the furs muffled around her mouth, she never would have dreamed she'd be so pleased to be surrounded by black cloaks.


End file.
